trinity news thursday lOth february--page three
DAVID
ALTARAS
REPORTS
’University Challenge’-how the team was picked and why they lost Sometime in the near future, viewers of Granada T.V.’s "University Challenge " will see a strangely unrepresentative team from Trinity beaten by Somerville College, Oxford. The selection of this team by the Hist. has caused much undisguised anger in many quarters and has resulted in a major ¯ breach between the Hist. and the newly re-organised S.R.C., who are fighting for greater powers in
Charges of negligence in advertising the selection of a team and of bad faith in its actual selection have been levied against him.
The last time
The history of Trinity’s participation in "University Challenge " begins in 1963 when the Phil. contacted Granada with a view to sending a team to compete. Granada agreed and the Phil., after advertising their intentions widely, selected a team by means of extensive quizzing of prospective candidates. As usual, Granada paid £80 to the Phil. for their troubles (which money was donated to the Library Fund). In the autumn of 1965 Granada wrote to June Rodgers, the only remaining member of the original team, about the possibility of Trinity entering another team, and she thought it only fair that the Hist. took the onus of the organisation this time. Accordingly, she contacted Cameron, who wrote , back to Granada advising them of this decision and asking for instructions about how to select a team. Michael Cameron, Auditor of the Granada roplied that prospective College Historical Society. carididates Mould be tested with an enclosed questionnaire, but there external College affairs. The vast was none enclosed. It was this majority of these critics see drawback, according ~o Cameron, Michael Cameron, Auditor of the together with the fact that Granada Hist., as the villain of the plot. altered the closing date--giving
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giving them only 24 hours to prepare a team--that resulted in the unsatisfactory selection. Nobody knew
viewed about 20 people and was looking for specialist knowledge in any particular field together with a broad knowledge. June Rodgers said: "Some people who replied to our advertisement were not contacted, because we believed they were not suitable at all." Of the final team, scholars Mary Bourke and David Norris were privately contacted. The remainer of the team consisted of David Wagstaff and Michael Shiels (present Secretary of the Hist.)¯ The reserve, William Young, also on the Hist. Committee, said that the producer of the show saw no objection whatsoever to the method of selection which was used.
Trinity shamed
believing they could do better, decided to forward a motion before their f u 11 Council expressing "grave dissatisfaction" with both Granada and the Hist. for not having contacted the S.R.C., " the only organisation representative of a 11 sections of undergraduate opinion in College." Howard Kinlay, Deputy President of the S.R.C., has already suggested that the organisers of our contribution to "University Challenge" should
those against Granda, for giving insufficient notice, and the Hist., whom it is felt did not appreciate the significance of this competition, so important to the projection of Trinity’s image in the British Isles, where educated opinion frequently holds this College to be a " cheerful, social backwater." A team truly representative of Trinity’s potential abilities would have at least trebled the mortifying score which our delegates amassed.
Whether this explanation is acceptable or not, nobody--least of all Cameron--would deny that the advertising was inadequate. An insignificant sheet of Hist. quarto S.R.C. protest size paper appeared in the three major society’s rooms, main gate, The final act of the drama came and in the Research students’ when the S.R.C., annoyed at the common room on January 17th. Hist’s handling of the affair, and
This notice called upon undergraduates, who wished to be considered, to contact the Hist. before January 21st. The ineffectiveness of these notices can be gathered from th6 fact that very few members of either the Phil. or the Eliz. even saw them, let alone applied. In their selection of the team, Cameron and June Rodgers relied on their personal judgments : Cameron said that he had inter-
rota:e in a four-year cycle between the three major societies and the S.R.C. Whatever the outcome of the motion, Cameron did not believe that the three major societies would take the suggestion seriously.
Although, at the time of going to press, there is no detailed account of the debacle which took place in the studios, it seems transparently obvious that the primitive and incompetent method of selecting a team led to a situation in which Trinity unnecessarily belittled itself in the eyes of the colossal viewing population of Great Britain---" University Challenge" rates among the Top Ten T.V. programmes. Amongst criticisms voiced in Trinity are
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Never shirk it! Face the worst! Evade the news no longer, Simply have a Guinness first; oon you’ll feel much stronger!
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